Art in Ojai

Another Magical Night

We got up this morning and decided to take an hour drive up to Ojai, California... One of our favorite little places to spend a lazy Sunday. They were having an art festival in the park—lots of jewelry, some interesting paintings, and photography. My favorite art wasn't in the park, though. It was in a gallery on the main road—Trowbridge Gallery. There were two artists represented that stood out above the others: Jeff Sojka and Ginger Moore Maxwell.

Mood Moon

Jeff Sojka’s paintings were of the landscape variety, and I especially liked the ones that were mostly about the big sky. I’ve been working on a series of photography that is all about the big sky, so I think that’s why I’m drawn to these. The red one is my favorite, and Matt liked the blue one.

Midday Dream II

Ginger Moore Maxwell’s paintings were a little more quirky. Her paintings of wildflowers (of course I can’t resist wildflowers!) are very representational and detailed. The thing that makes them so interesting is that the flowers seem to be like puppets, suspended from little strings, hanging from an unseen place. Are they puppets, happy and dancing? Or, are they hung like little dead men? I’m not sure.

Day Trip to Ojai, California

Entrance to the park in Ojai

We got up this morning and decided to take an hour drive up to Ojai, California... One of our favorite little places to spend a lazy Sunday.

We were really looking forward to visiting our favorite old bbq dive joint [Oak Pit BBQ] in Oak View, just a couple miles outside of Ojai... When we got there, we found it completely different than we left it a couple years ago. I guess someone bought it and renovated it. It’s no longer the homey, divey place we loved. Now it’s just a generic restaurant, nothing special about the new atmosphere. I wish I had a photo of how it used to be.

We decided to give it a chance anyway. The food was good, not great like we remembered. I especially missed the hand-cut fries they used to serve. Now they just serve regular old frozen fries—boring! And on top of everything else, we were too full after lunch to indulge in our favorite raspberry sorbet from the ice cream shop in town!

After we walked through downtown Ojai looking at some lovely art at the “Art in the Park” fair, we drove over to one of my favorite spots at Meditation Mount, where we took a walk in the peace garden and looked out over the Ojai Valley.

It really is a peaceful place! I saw this beautiful cactus bloom on the path.

There are working ranches, orchards and farms all over the place. We stopped to photograph this recently-bailed hay from outside Black Mountain Ranch. So beautiful. When I spend so much time in Los Angeles (after living there and visiting all the time) it’s easy to forget that much of California is rural.

Here’s a roadside produce stand in Fillmore. We stopped in and looked around on our way back to the city. Too bad we’re staying in a hotel or I would’ve racked up on some freshly picked strawberries!

Back in Los Angeles

Matt and I are back in LA for the next week so I can do some work with FIDM—I’m trying to finish up their college catalog design so I can send my files to the printer... sigh... This project is really beginning to draaag. I think it will be a great piece when it finally gets completed—If I survive that long!

Our trip: We drove through several hours of rain in Utah, which was unusual simply because it rarely rains in the desert, and when it does it’s usually just for a few minutes. By the time we arrived in Vegas it was sunny and a warm 100°. Then, as we came down the hill at Cajon Pass, we could see a blanket of brown resting over Southern California... *cough, cough*

We’re thinking about going to Ojai tomorrow (Oak Pit BBQ—A dive with the best bbq in California, and the best fries too!)... or maybe hiking Mount Williamson in the Angeles National Forest. . . I’m definitely going to Golden Bridge Yoga several times this week for a few kundalini classes... and I won’t leave the city without at least one meal at my favorite Thai restaurant.

Update: Um, we went back to Oak Pit BBQ, and apparently the ownership has changed. They completely remodeled the interior, so instead of having a quirky charm, it's totally generic. And the same thing happened to their food. Instead of delicious hand-cut fries, now it's the frozen kind. Blech. And the sandwiches just didn't have the same oomph in the new sterile atmostphere.

More Evidence of my Wildflower Obsession

Cliffrose below the Rattlesnake Arches.

Matt took me up to hike the Rattlesnake Arches within McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area in the late afternoon yesterday. The temperature was perfect, and since it was so late in the day there was hardly anyone else around. Matt and I agree, May is the best month of the year in canyon country.

Stemless Woolybase

Cushion Buckwheat

I love this one! It looks like a little mound of fluffy pom poms low to the ground. If you bend down and get a close-up look, you can see the little red stripe on each tiny petal. It makes me think of peppermint!

Penstemon

Sego Lily

Recent Paintings / New Color Palettes

A couple months ago I was working on these new small paintings and I needed some inspiration. I’ve been getting sick of the color palettes I typically gravitate towards, so I decided to put all my inks in a big pile, and force myself to use whichever 3 or 4 random colors I picked with my eyes closed.

I’m so glad I did this little exercise, because I never would’ve combined colors in exactly this way; these are much subtler and softer than I’m used to. I think I’ll continue this method for a while and see what happens.

More Surprises / Southern Utah

A Native American grain storage building under a rock overhang in a cliff side.

The Southern Utah deserts are bursting with surprises — large and small, from wildflowers to thousand-year old native rock art to natural arches and springs. Matt and I have come across quite a few Native American drawings as we’ve explored our local region this spring.

This natural arch is called “Paul Bunyan’s Potty” and is located near the granary pictured above. You can get a sense of the scale of things by noticing Matt standing at the base of the rock at the bottom of the picture.

Native American rock art at the base of a cliff just outside Canyonlands National Park.

More Utah Desert Wildflowers

Claret Cup Cactus

Silvery Lupine

Milkvetch

Globemallow

Cliffrose

Heartbreaking Beauty of the Utah Desert

We were surprised to find a little patch of Manzanita at the higher elevations. This plant is really common in the Angeles National Forest north of Los Angeles.

I can’t find a name for this one. Looks like a lily, perhaps, but it’s not in any of my books.

Matt and I went (once again) to the southeast corner of Utah for a weekend of camping and outdoor enjoyment. We finally got our new truck completely situated the way we want it for going waaaay out into the sticks on bumpy 4x4 roads. I think we saw a total of five or six other people the entire weekend.

Dwarf Evening Primrose — This is by far the largest flower I saw. Each bloom is about 2" in diameter. The entire plant is a mound about 12" around.

The first week of May is, as far as I can guess, the prime time for desert wildflower spotting. The weather is just getting warm, about 75° during the day, and there are still a few patches of old snow in the shadiest spots.

Scarlet Gilia

The thing I love most about desert wildflowers is their tiny size relative to the vast expanse of landscape. If you don't keep your eyes open, it's easy to just glance right over them. They grow close to the ground, typically not very close to one another, and the blooms are rarely over a half-inch in diameter.

Our campsite (and our new truck!). The higherelevations are really green at the moment — big thunderstorms passed through last week. Everything will be brown again shortly.

Stephanie Liner’s Paradoxical Sculptures

I came across these beautifully unnerving works by Stephanie Liner through the pattern research I’ve been doing lately. Her work straddles ideas of beauty and traditional ideas of femininity and sexuality. She uses patterns in her work that evoke the Victorian period, when women had a very defined role in the household and in culture.

Many of the pieces Stephanie makes have secret compartments in intimate places that hold candy or other objects for viewers (men) to discover. Are these items gifts from the woman to her suitor, or is there something more sinister in the relationship between the woman and the viewer?